Student Entrepreneurial Excellence Awards

Overview

In celebration of EPICentre’s 10th anniversary of fostering entrepreneurial thinking on campus and through the Windsor-Essex community, EPICentre presents the Student Entrepreneurial Excellence Awards. These awards aim to recognize and celebrate outstanding University of Windsor student entrepreneurs who have displayed entrepreneurial excellence, resilience, and innovative thinking.

The awards are:

1. Entrepreneurial Trailblazer Award – Recognizing entrepreneurial excellence, the Entrepreneurial Trailblazer Award acknowledges the exceptional accomplishments of a student entrepreneur who has demonstrated visionary leadership and significant entrepreneurial success

2. Innovation Mastery Award – Celebrating innovative ideas, the Innovation Award recognizes a student entrepreneur whose business or ideas have demonstrated remarkable innovation, creativity, and the potential for positive impact

3. Best Bounce Back Award – Celebrating resilience, this award honours a student entrepreneur who has shown exceptional resilience in the face of challenges and has successfully overcome obstacles to achieve their entrepreneurial goals

The winner of each award will receive a $500 cash prize and a trophy.

Nominate an exceptional University of Windsor Student Entrepreneur for the EPICentre Student Entrepreneurial Excellence Awards today! Self-nominations are also welcome!

Eligibility

Nominees for 2024 awards must be:

Current University of Windsor students (undergraduate and graduate), including students graduated in the academic year 2023
Nominees do NOT have to be EPICentre’s current or past members
Nominees do not have to own a business formally

Key Dates

Nominations open: Monday, October 2nd, 2023 at 9:00 am
Nominations close: Monday, November 6th, 2023 at 2:00 pm
Nominees announced on Monday November 27th, 2023
Winners announced at EPICentre’s 10th Anniversary Celebration on Friday January 19th, 2024

Nomination

Nominations for the Student Entrepreneurial Excellence Awards are now closed, thank you for your interest!

Awards Selection Process

EPICentre staff will review all nominations to ensure nominees meet the eligibility criteria.
All eligible nominations will be reviewed by the Nominees Selection Committee, which will consist of the Director of EPICentre and two external members from the community.
The Nominees Selection Committee will select up to 5 nominees for each award category.
Nominees will be notified by email; nominees will also be shared on EPICentre’s social media
All nominees will be reviewed by the Awards Selection Committee, which will consist of three external members from the community
Winners of each award will be announced, and awards will be presented at the Student Entrepreneurial Excellence Award Celebration

2024 Winners

2024 winners

Entrepreneurial Trailblazer Award This award acknowledges the exceptional accomplishments of a student entrepreneur who has demonstrated visionary leadership and significant entrepreneurial success.	Congratulations, Nathan Brockenshire Nathan is studying Mechanical Engineering with an Automotive Specialization and is also the founder of Brock’s Detail Co., A car detailing business that launched during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Nathan turned this home-based business into a mobile one shortly after launching, giving him enough of a client base to hire two employees onto his team. Over the past four years, Brock’s Detail Co. team has raised over 11.5k for the Hospice of Windsor by organizing car wash events with a team of volunteers. Their last event in August of 2023 raised over $3000 for the cause.
Innovation Mastery Award This award recognizes a student entrepreneur whose business or ideas have demonstrated remarkable innovation, creativity and the potential for positive impact.	Congratulations, Ahmed Ali Ahmed is an Electrical and Computer Engineering student whose venture evolved from his final-year engineering capstone project which addresses a critical challenge in drone technology: the ability to navigate indoors where GPS signals falter. Ahmed’s innovation is a custom-designed flight controller, which he builds from scratch, incorporating vision-based algorithms to guide the drone. Ahmed equipped the drone to act as a flying Wi-Fi access point, enabling it to wirelessly transmit data back to operators. This feature ensures a swift and reliable flow of information indoors, a significant upgrade over traditional radio transmissions.
Best Bounce Back Award This award honors a student entrepreneur who has shown exceptional resilience in the face of challenges and has successfully overcome obstacles to achieve their entrepreneurial goals.	Congratulations, Adam Gaisinsky According to Adam, one of the toughest challenges in business is changing the standard practice in a field. That is exactly what he has done with the Windsor Chess Enrichment Program. Their decision-based structure with an open environment is something that, according to Adam, is looked down upon in the chess community for being too casual, resulting in a low number of registrants at the start. The program stuck to its beliefs and continued to run at a loss until testimonials and student improvement changed the community perspective. As evidenced by the program’s current success, the Windsor Chess Enrichment Program overcame this issue by sticking to its morals, listening to students’ feedback, and targeted marketing. The WCEP was also founded during the COVID-19 pandemic, making aspects like inventory, logistics, marketing, hiring, and curriculum development all the more challenging. Adam dedicated his own resources and countless hours to get the program off the ground.